Kingsoft Office is one of the finest mobile office suites you will ever use. Not only does it offer an efficient interface for working with documents, it also has a number of tools to help make creating and editing those documents almost as easy as if you were at a desktop.

One such tool is the Format Painter. This tool is used to replicate formats in spreadsheets and can replicate the format of selected objects, text, or cells. With this handy feature, you don't have to constantly re-do formatting, which will (given the nature of working with the tablet interface) save you plenty of time and effort.

What may take a bit of effort is getting used to the Format Painter. It's not terribly difficult to use, but you need to understand how it functions. Once you've mastered that, you'll be quickly copying formats to and fro — thus spending more of your valuable mobile time working with data and not making the data presentable.

Let's dig into this tool and start painting formats.

First off, I'll assume you already have Kingsoft Office installed on your tablet and have given it enough time to develop a certain level of familiarity with the tools. I'll also assume you have at least a basic understanding of spreadsheets (that's pretty much all you'll need for this, as there are no high-level functions used).

Selecting the cells for the Format Painter

You have to be careful about selecting the cells that are copied to the Format Painter, because it will copy the formatting for each cell selected. So, if you select a 10x10 square of formatted cells, the Format Painter will have a 10x10 cell block to work with. However, that doesn't mean you're limited to a 10x10 block. Once you've painted your formatting, you can resize that new block — but if the target formatting exceeds the 10x10 block size, the formatting will repeat until all cells are formatted.

A bit confused? Let's first walk through the process of using the Format Painter.

Open your spreadsheet and then tap on the upper-most left cell of the block to be used for formatting (Figure A). Now grab the lower-most drag handle and drag it to select the entire formatted block.
Figure A

Kingsoft Office running on the Verizon-branded Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Once you have the entire formatted block selected, tap the Format Painter button, and the selection will be copied to the painter (Figure B).
Figure B

The dotted line indicates the selection has been copied to the painter.

With the block copied to the painter, you can then paint the formatting on the same sheet or a new sheet. If the cell block to be painted has a date already in place, it will not be deleted by the painter — the only thing that will change is the formatting.

To paint the formatting, simply move to the location you want the formatting, and tap the upper left-most cell. The block should automatically appear (Figure C).
Figure C

The newly painted formatting.

When you first add copied formatting, you'll see arrows on each side. You can drag those arrows to match the size of the block you need. However, if the block is larger than the original block copied, the formatting will repeat itself (Figure D).
Figure D

You can go smaller without breaking the formatting.

You can continue painting cells until you tap the Format Painter button to end the painting session. Once you've ended that painting session, you can go back and select a new block of cells to copy their formatting to the painter.

Having the ability to quickly add formatting from an already formatted block of cells makes the Kingsoft Office spreadsheets tool much more efficient for a tablet environment. When you're on the go, efficiency means a higher probability of getting a job done.

Do you use Kingsoft Office on your tablet? Share your Kingsoft Office tips and tricks in the discussion thread below.

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About Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.

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Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.